This was more put into perspective for me tho on a recent visit to Warners where the entire Moa range seems quite reasonably priced. I don't know enough about the Kiwi industry to know whether brands such as Epic price themselves as premium in NZ, but I can't see why the pricing makes sense. They are almost as expensive in some instances as the recent US imports.

Economics of scale? Some of the US Craft breweries (Sierra Nevada for instance) are ginormous compared to Australia. GINORMOUS!

Croucher Pils 330ml is 23.99 4pk in New Zealand from what I most recently saw. Pretty similar to what we are paying here. Most 8 Wired is +$10, and take into account our far higher excise then New Zealand.

I was in Wellington 3 weeks and the pricing comparative with Australia was not at all consistent. As Lukie has noted the 8 Wired gear is say $10 - $14 in NZD and around this level here (ignoring the ex/r for a momemt). EPIC was very different from what I could see with the Pale selling for $6 or $7 versus $10 - $12 here. So yep, definitely a gap (freight, tax) but nowhere the gap to US beers.

I guess I was taking as a comparison an EPIC 500ml which sits usually around the $AUD15 upward on the shelves. 8 Wired pretty much the same for 500ml.
Bombers (640ml, so 25% more beer) from the US are also around the $15-17 mark recently - Green Flash etc. [Complete aside - Murrays charge around $14 or so for a 7% ABV beer (Punk Monk) but again that is in a 640ml.]

So that was my basis - NZ beers in question seeming to me to be more expensive. And NZ I would have guessed incurs a lot less in terms of shipping than from the US.

It is the economies of scale that negates most of the shipping cost for the American stuff, compared to the kiwi stuff. Then again, off the top of my head, the last Renaissance kegs we got came in at around roughly $350 per 49.5L keg and 8 Wired was about $400. Bear Rep and Green Flash on the other hand came in at around $440. Not much of a variance over roughly 87 pints....

But then again, they do charge a premium because they know it's good beer. You charge what the market would bear....and then just a bit more.